But Words Will Break My Heart
by MakeLoveNotSense
Summary: Sticks and stones may break my bones. Introspectives on the team, with a focus on punishment.
1. Cooper

Vignettes on the Torchwood members. Inspired by an LJ icon bearing the quote below. One chapter on each person, uploaded as and when I write them.

Disclaimer: I claim a non-chronological introspecive fic marathon (see below). But not Torchwood itself.

* * *

**But Words Will Break My Heart**

**Or, Five People Jack Almost Punishes But Doesn't**

Cooper

:::

_If you think I'm bulletproof, I'm not._

:::

Gwen Cooper is not perfect.

Nor is she bulletproof.

But she is very clever.

:::

On her first day at Torchwood, Gwen kills ten people.

She doesn't do it on purpose, but it does pose an interesting question. Because do the nine innocent humans matter more than the one alien-possessed human girl? Less? Does Gwen herself matter at all, for hurting them?

Carys is violated in every way possible. And the nine men are robbed of their lives. And it's all Gwen's fault.

Afterwards, she silently takes the files Jack has on his desk, and goes through them one by one. Toshiko helps with faking the evidence, but the hows and whys are left to Gwen.

She looks at the files of each man separately, forcing herself to focus on every detail. This man had a wife and two children, this one had been an electrician, this one wanted to travel the world. All of them ordinary, and full of life.

She finds the next of kin, asks Ianto for the keys to the SUV and spends an afternoon sitting with each family separately telling them the news - as close to the truth as she can keep it.

Some of them cry. Some of them thank her then ask her to leave. But she's paranoid that the worst ones, the silent ones, see right through her. They eye her shaking hands and over-compensative tone with trepidation, and she can't wait to leave. But she doesn't, for a while, because she deserves it.

Of course, five minutes into the faltering conversation that follows, she knows they don't suspect a thing. But the point is, she had doubts.

As a police officer, she could walk on water. Now she's barely afloat.

:::

The affair with Owen is wrong.

Gwen knows it. Owen knows it. Hell, half of Torchwood knows it.

Gwen also knows that somewhere deep inside, she is stamping on Tosh's heart and grinding it into the dust. But she can't quite bring herself to care.

She won't stop. Not because it feels good (because it doesn't - sneaking around, terrified of getting caught, and he's not even that _good_), not because she wants to forget (if she did, there's Retcon for that), but because she needs someone else there to feel as base, as utterly _wrong_, as she does. Because she feels like she's losing herself, and you can't get lost if there's someone else there to bring you home. Can you?

This is the first time she starts to question the compassion that brought her to Torchwood.

:::

She cheats on Rhys, retcons him, and brings him back from the dead.

Because she needs to hold on to _something_ from her past. And he seemed like a good idea at the time.

:::

Gwen can't help falling for Jack.

She tries, she really does. The affair with Owen, burying herself in her work, going so far as to marry Rhys. Because he asked, and Jack was never there. Jack was never coming back.

And, dammit, she knew she was in deep, but she didn't realise how much she _missed _him until he was gone. Then he came back, was about to say 'something', noticed her engagement ring and promptly developed his fling with Ianto into a full-blown relationship.

She also tries to be happy for them. On a good day, she almost manages it.

:::

For all her faults, Gwen is a good leader. She can pull them together. She knows their strengths and can let each person shine in their own right.

Toshiko becomes confident. Gwen makes a special effort, all the while knowing that she can never assuage her guilt about Owen, and the two women become friends. Not close, but they occasionally go shopping and chat. Not always about work, either.

She talks to Owen, as well. After a heated argument involving his adamant claim that she should take the lead and her (ultimately ineffective) statements that first Ianto, then Tosh, would be better suited to the job, they get to the point where they could be in the same room without it becoming awkward. This working relationship gradually progresses - or should that be regresses- to the pre-sexual tension days. She also drops a few hints about Tosh's feelings, as if the sandwiches weren't enough of a clue.

Ianto, strangely, is the one she can talk to most. He understands about Jack, and is the only one who will broach the subject while he is missing. Gwen tries to draw him into the Hub, changing his position in the team from odd-job man to valuable field agent and provider of dry wit. Gwen's actually rather proud of him.

:::

Gwen herself is changing. She takes on more of Jack's personality each day; the secrets, the quiet watchfulness under a pretence of flippancy. The tragic thing about her is that she knows her faults, and tries to correct them in the worst possible way. The ironic thing is that she can hide these flaws, along with her attempts to improve herself, so well that people assume they were never there in the first place. Or they assume that _she_ thinks she's perfect.

She's not sure which is worse. The former find her naïve. The latter find her annoying, selfish and pushy.

The one thing they all assume, whether fondly or bitterly, is that her actions never have consequences. Karma, and Jack, never hand her the punishments she so richly deserves.

But lying awake at night, with the name of everyone she has ever hurt burning itself into her eyelids with a red-hot poker and the guilt wrapped in heavy chains around her limbs, Gwen thinks otherwise.

:::

Gwen Cooper is not perfect.

Nor is she bulletproof,

But her gift is that she can make anyone believe she is.


	2. Jones

Jones

:::

_He who hesitates is lost._

:::

Ianto Jones likes to be alone.

He always has.

It makes things so much less complicated.

:::

Ianto is not proud of how he got the job at Torchwood One. In fact, he tries to avoid the subject.

You don't get an interview from Canary Wharf, they find you. They look through every report they can find, from those swimming certificates when you were five to that shoplifting caution at seventeen. Then they watch you for weeks on CCTV, shadowing your every move until they _know_ you're right for the job.

Ianto's offer comes a few months after a particularly nasty night at the pub. His friend - his best friend at the time - hits on the bouncer's girlfriend whilst spectacularly drunk, and the two of them 'step outside' to sort it out. The friend comes back into the pub, and silently pulls Ianto over to the bushes which contain the body of one dead bouncer.

Ianto is horrified; his childhood OCD coming back in full force

-must get the dirt off my hands, can't ever get them clean enough, why doesn't washing them _help_?-

and starts to clear up the mess mechanically. He checks the area for CCTV, tips the body into a nearby skip and takes his friend home to burn their clothes. He then returns to the pub and plies everyone with enough drink that they hopefully won't even remember their own _names_ in the morning, much less the pair of them. He goes back the next day to see the skip being emptied, the contents being delivered to some nameless landfill site.

Every day after that, he checks the news obsessively. He loses contact with the friend, stops going out, and his heart clenches every time the 'Missing Persons' report is shown on the news. He recovers a little bit with each time it slips further down the list of events, but he still can't stop washing his hands.

The day after the case is put on 'indefinite hold', he receives a call from Torchwood London.

:::

Ianto cannot believe his luck. Torchwood Cardiff was a legend in the whispering halls of Canary Wharf, and despite his efforts he never actually expected to get the job. Of course, it may have helped that Suzie was intrigued by him, and was trying to convince Jack to take him on. Obviously without letting Jack know this.

But still… the facilities they have there are perfect. And being the designated jack-of-all-trades gives him a perfect excuse for disappearing when needed. After all, Lisa won't move herself.

:::

Ianto can't stop thinking about Annie.

He tries to tell Jack about this and Jack replies - Annie who? Ianto doesn't know how to put the phrase 'the pizza delivery girl who Lisa killed' into a sentence he can say without breaking down. So he doesn't try again.

But the thing is, he's getting the two of them confused in his mind. He can still remember Lisa, still hear her voice in his memories, but somehow when he tries to picture her face, all he can see is Annie. Innocent, unsuspecting Annie with a jagged line slicing her forehead, spelling out Ianto's betrayal far more effectively than words ever could.

Whenever he feels even slightly irritated, starts to resent the team or his quasi-invisible place in it, he goes down to that corner of the archives only he knows about and pulls out the copy of Annie's file. Then he reads through it, page by page.

By the time the rest of them wonder where he is, he's back with a half-smile on his face. He couldn't save Lisa or Annie, but he can live for them.

:::

His pseudo-relationship with Jack is… complicated. It began as a way to keep Jack from being suspicious about why Ianto was always at the Hub, but gradually it changed into something… more.

Ianto's not stupid. He knows Jack has a wandering eye and a minor soft spot for a certain new girl. But after the _incident_ (which he refuses to think of at as 'Lisa's death') he needs something to keep him grounded, and to make him forget. Jack fills both roles perfectly.

Plus, he's damn charming when he wants to be.

:::

During Jack's departure, Ianto becomes closer to Gwen.

It's a sort of natural evolution, really; it grows out of a common need not to be caught in the undertow. They both know, far too well, that Torchwood will swallow you whole if you let it, and Ianto has no intention of letting that happen to Gwen.

In return, she makes him a proper part of the team. Admin be damned, he's coming out with them to catch that alien, she says.

The friendship continues despite Jack's return. Ianto finds it difficult to remember what life was like before their little conversations, and then wonders if it was Jack keeping them apart all along.

_Selfish bugger_, Ianto thinks. Then wonders if the friendship is actually continuing because of Jack's return.

:::

Ianto used to be quiet, but now he is sarcastic. He used to be alone, but now he has friends.

He used to think Torchwood One had the right idea about the alien scum, but now he's not so sure.

:::

Ianto Jones likes to be alone.

He always has.

But sometimes, he thinks, complicated is better shared than kept to oneself.


	3. Harper

First and last paragraphs taken from the book 'Torchwood: Another Life' by Peter Anghelides.

* * *

Harper

:::

_Primum non nocere._

:::

Owen Harper is a doctor.

He was born a doctor, lives every day a doctor, and he'll die a doctor.

But sometimes he forgets that.

:::

Watching Katie deteriorate is the worst thing that Owen can imagine.

Because it's not like he's got a body to bury; there's no time for grieving or shouting about how unfair it is. She's right there, and confused, and she needs _him_ more than she's ever needed anyone before. So he tries to help her in the only way he knows how. He takes over.

She finally snaps one day and yells at him, telling him not to smother her and to stop treating- treating her like a… like a… dammit, _what's the word?_

Child, he supplies quietly. Then holds her while she cries.

From then on, they face it together Every step downhill is taken jointly, holding hands like teenagers in some bizarre three-legged race.

And Owen only cries at night for the parts of her he is losing.

:::

Her death is almost a relief.

Not in the sense that he wanted her to die (because she made him so much better, and how can he breathe without her smile, her laugh, her voice?) but because he finally gets some answers. She's no longer hurting, and he knows that he was right.

It's a poor comfort, though.

:::

At Torchwood, Owen does what Owen does best. He denies even the possibility of having emotions, and drinks his way to the morning.

Various one-night-stands ensue, in which the girl is always nameless and gone by morning. Because if he doesn't know who they are, it can't be cheating, can it?

The thing with Suzie is mostly to warn off Toshiko. He's noticed the way she looks at him and he can't afford to be in another serious relationship. Not that he would want to, anyway. Obviously.

There are moments, though, when he forgets to look for a blond woman walking beside him, and reaches for a petite Japanese girl instead. And those are the moments where he checks himself, tugging on the top of those barriers to raise them even higher. Those are the moments where he misses hospital life, because a drunken haze is no substitute for the next emergency to take your mind off things.

:::

The thing with Gwen is yet another defence. It's convenient; he doesn't need to look too far for the next fix of forget-me tonic and he likes to think that he helps her. If it wasn't him taking her mind off things, it could be something far worse. And so they go on.

He can see he's breaking Toshiko's heart, and finds himself caring about this far more than he should. So up come the sarcastic barbs and the angry denials. Love you too, Tosh.

:::

Dying is awesome.

No anxieties, surprisingly little pain. Just a strange sense of bliss as the world folds in on itself. In terms of life flashing before his eyes, Owen gets up to the part where he shot Jack when he suddenly thinks _was that it? Everything I ever did, was that all?_

And just like that, he wants to live. Death has other ideas, though. None of them involving a happy ending.

:::

Being dead is not so awesome.

No food, no alcohol, no sex. Well, there are Owen's chief pleasures in life gone straight away.

That's why he begs - actually _begs_ - Jack for his job back. Because he needs something in his life that's _his_. Being a doctor is just what he does, and Torchwood can take his breath, his heartbeat, anything they damn well please, but they are not taking that.

And when Tosh comes to his flat, talking about trivialities and playing house, he lashes out more than ever before, because can't she _understand_ that he's drowning with water filling his lungs, and it doesn't make a blind bit of difference because now he can't be _touched_?

He shouts, and she leaves. He tries to cry, but Death does not take kindly to those who interrupt his plans.

:::

And then it gets better. The team doesn't change, although they're a little more careful about saying things like 'dead drunk'. The aliens keep flooding in, and the paperwork is easier to handle now he doesn't have to worry about trivial things like sleep, and the Earth keeps turning round the Sun. And (best of all) luckily, Tosh is still around to pick up the pieces.

Change is overrated, thinks Owen as he looks around the Hub to see life going on as usual. And he smiles, because that's the one gift that Death can't take back.

:::

Owen Harper is a doctor.

He was born a doctor, lives every day a doctor, and he'll die a doctor.

But not today.


	4. Sato

Sato

:::

_We never fell in love; we only fell apart._

:::

Toshiko Sato is brilliant.

And she knows she is.

Sometimes, she just wishes other people could see it too.

:::

Toshiko knows exactly what it is that makes her accept the MOD job.

It's the car crash that kills her father.

Because he never quite approved of her passion for (obsession with?) technology. He'd have much preferred a daughter who was moderately pretty and knew her place - at the side of a rich Japanese businessman.

So when he dies, and she is left to take care of her mother, she thinks _why not?_ Because he followed the rules all his life, did what was expected of him and look where he ended up.

It's the first time she's ever been this reckless. And it feels _good_.

:::

The thing with U.N.I.T. is a bloody mess.

We have your mother, says the e-mail. Cold and impersonal with the photos to prove it. And because she always loved her mother, even if she never liked her, she tries. Because it is expected.

The sonic modulator isn't even the hardest thing she's ever built. Her brain lets her fingers take the lead, and it stops her from shaking quite so hard.

She ends up improving it without thinking; it's just who she is. The eternal optimist.

:::

The cell.

Oh God, the cell.

It's not the fear that preys on her mind, nor the anger at the injustice of it all. It's the sheer _boredom_ of it that drives her mad; a woman driven by technology and numbers without a single spark of electricity. It's no wonder her lights are fading.

So she relies on her mind, translating her thoughts into strings of binary. Computers are her friends; it's only fair she speaks a language they both understand.

Four walls to call her own. She's never had her own house before.

:::

No contact with her mother.

Two years ago, she would have given anything for that rule. Something to put an end to the eternal awkward silence of a mother and daughter who have nothing to say. They are roots and branches; joined at the origin but growing apart at an alarming rate.

Now, Toshiko prays for the woodcutter. That way, the roots don't have to stretch as far to touch the ground she lies on.

:::

Owen. Owen Harper. Doctor Owen Harper.

Where to begin?

Define a man by the women in his life; well, that's his mother out. Then there's Suzie. Then Gwen. Then Diane.

Sometimes she wonders what's wrong with her, that he would take any woman in Torchwood except her. She hears his sarcasm, his refusal to accept anyone else as his equal, and thinks _I need to get out_.

Then he smiles at her, and she remembers - that's why she loves him like she does. The flaws _are _Owen Harper; take them away and you're left with his silhouette.

That's not what she wants. That's not what she wants at all.

:::

Mary. Tommy. They want her, and she needs to be wanted. All the while, watching for _his _reaction.

First time, he doesn't care. Second, he's concerned.

Third time's the charm?

:::

Owen is dead, and then he isn't. He shouts, and then opens up to her.

Eternal optimist. That's as close to an apology as she'll get.

She takes it.

:::

Tosh knows her place in the team. She does everything except admin, and she does it quickly. Technology lies down and invites her to walk all over it. Numbers; the one certainty in life. Two is two is two, no matter what planet you come from. The universal language and she's the only member of Torchwood who's fluent.

And she sees it in Gwen's face when they're compiling the missing persons reports, and in Ianto's when she hands him the budget sheets with notes in the margins to make his job ten times easier. They're in awe, a little bit.

Jack, on the other hand, knows exactly what she's capable of and expects it.

She smashes those expectations to pieces every bloody day. Just because she can.

:::

Toshiko Sato is brilliant.

And she knows she is.

And every now and then, someone else knows it too.


	5. Costello

Costello

:::

_I can't go back to yesterday; I was a different person then._

:::

Suzie Costello is lost.

She doesn't want to be found.

And she certainly isn't interested in finding anyone else.

:::

Suzie first sees the man in the blue-grey coat when she is fifteen. She's just got her first B in a test, and she's furious with herself. Because she's _clever_, it's what she does, and if she can't do that then what is she good for?

She's thinking so hard that she almost runs into him, but before she can apologise, he's gone.

When she gets home, her father slaps her for being three minutes late, then orders her to start cooking dinner.

That night is also the night she runs away.

:::

Suzie is at Swansea University studying Maths. She absolutely hates it but she got in on a scholarship and there's no way she can afford the fees on another course. So she goes down to the park, sits right at the back in a little patch of shade, and struggles to stay awake reading through her textbooks.

Suddenly, the man sits down beside her.

"Nice evening for it," he drawls in one of those endlessly irritating American accents, gesturing to her books.

She's not in the mood for this. "If you're thinking about hitting on me, then don't. I've had a bad day, and the last thing I want is to have to take down some Yankee Doodle who's getting a bit friendly with his hands."

He laughs, then invites her for a drink. She says no, then picks up her books and walks away. She's not smiling. Honest.

The next day, he's already there when she arrives. This time, she has that drink.

:::

"Come work for me."

The offer comes three drinks into their seventeenth 'date'. Not that Suzie's been counting. They've been all over Swansea and the surrounding area, and somehow on the long drives she's found herself telling him everything. How much she hates her course. How much she hates her father. Favourite colours, guilty pleasures, TV shows she detests but will watch anyway…

(She's never slept with him though. From the things he's said, she thinks she's the only person who _hasn't_, but she won't cross that line. She doesn't actually fancy him anyway - he's more like an annoying older brother.)

She looks at him with her head tilted to one side. "Did you know that from this angle there are four of you? God forbid!"

He watches her steadily. "Don't change the subject."

"Well, what would I be doing? Up in Cardiff, do they have a shortage of accountants?" She spits the last word out as if it tastes of acid. God only knows what possessed her to continue with this course. Actually, she knows exactly why - it was the closest she could get to Engineering on a scholarship.

He stands up suddenly, grasping her hand. "Come and see."

He drives her down to Cardiff, and shows her around his home. The next day, she transfers to Cardiff University on a Torchwood-funded Engineering degree.

:::

For the next few months, that's how they stay. Satellites in orbit, never quite touching the lives of those on the outside but watching them all the same. And for the first time ever, Suzie feels wanted.

He waltzes in, charm offensive making everyone in a five-metre radius fall at his feet, and she deals with all things technological. Faking smiles and access passes. The perfect team.

But then Suzie gets shot. And even through the morphine haze, she's never seen Jack look so worried. He holds her hand until the last possible second, and when she wakes up the nurses tell her he threatened at least three doctors with arrest if they don't save her.

He sits at her bedside muttering "If I'd been there, if I'd been in front…" then stops abruptly and tells her they need help.

The next day, he starts looking through files. Three weeks after that, Toshiko Sato arrives.

:::

It's not a bad life, thinks Suzie. She watches Tosh fiddle with her glasses over some never-ending bit of programming, then sends a text to Owen. _Same time tomorrow?_

She gets the feeling Jack doesn't approve of the 'arrangement' (she refuses to call it a relationship, because that would imply some emotion). It's in the looks he gives her as she walks out of the Hub with Owen following like an obedient dog. It's in his smile when he asks if she's free for a drink tonight and she says yes.

Sometimes, she thinks he's a little in love with her. So she does it all the more.

After all, no point having the most eligible bachelor this side of the Horsehead Nebula hanging onto your every word if you're not going to play hard-to-get.

:::

The Glove.

The Glove changes everything.

There's just something about it that draws Suzie in. She's the only one of them who can work it, and it's like it's _special_, like it was made for her. And there's a little voice at the back of her head, the part that giggled when her father got cancer and felt inordinately happy at Jack's jealousy, that said _take it. It's yours._

Power over life and death. It's seductive, enthralling, dominating. In short, it's everything Suzie ever wanted to be.

She doesn't want it to end.

So she's careful. Plants seeds for her return, a _just in case_ of epic proportions. Plans little games for Jack, like the crosswords they used to do together, back when it _was_ the two of them together. The little voice laughs louder.

And eventually, it stops being enough. She's been talking to people at her Pilgrim group every week, just to keep her grounded, but it's no longer what she needs. She's tried explaining everything, opening up completely, but the little voice just mocks her efforts. So eventually, she gives in. She just needs the Glove and the Glove needs her.

She takes out the knife and falters. But then she thinks of the _rush_ when a person who had life leaking out of them through a sieve looks into her eyes, and her mind is made up.

Killing isn't all that difficult with the right reason.

:::

Gwen bloody Cooper.

Standing with a gun to her chin, Suzie's last thought is of Jack. Not the coat, the ambiguity, the flirting. Just the two of them on a Sunday morning, eating pancakes and arguing over whether the bald man on the left is planning to invade the planet.

She pulls the trigger with a smile in her eyes.

:::

Suzie Costello is lost.

She doesn't want to be found.

But for a while there, she understood that knowing exactly where you are has its merits.


	6. Harkness

Last chapter! And it's epic. Jack has just lived so damn long.

Thank you to everyone who's read and/or reviewed this story. It really means a lot. And on that note, could I ask a favour? If you do review, would you mind telling me which chapter you enjoyed most and why? My writing style varied slightly in each one, and I'm interested to know what works.

And now - the end is nigh...

* * *

Harkness

:::

_If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take._

:::

Captain Jack Harkness is wrong.

Wrong on so many levels.

And the worst thing of all is that he knows it.

:::

Poster boy for the Boeshane Peninsula. Top of his class at the Time Agency. Knows how to handle a gun, and how to charm so many people that he doesn't need one.

Sounds like the perfect CV.

But for him, every achievement he makes is twisted by that one failure. The Time Agency is a vehicle in which he can search more effectively for his little brother, that's all. And if he gains knowledge to blackmail and bribe those who could assist him… well, that's just an added bonus.

He retains this ruthlessly-minded state until thirty years after graduating, when he wakes up and makes breakfast before remembering Grey.

:::

My name is Jack Harkness.

He stands in front of the mirror in a hotel room the size of a shoe box, the list of the recent dead clutched between two fingers. For the past half hour, he has been introducing himself as each name, trying to find a new identity that fits. After all, how can the Time Agency catch him if there is no longer a 'him' to catch?

Jack Harkness, he thinks. Nice ring to it. It'll do for now.

And when he spares a thought for Real Jack, the one who is now kept alive by New Jack's selfishness, those two missing years poke and prod at his mind, exploding in Technicolour pain just out of reach. New Jack thinks that maybe those two years are better off without him.

But he'll never know unless he tries, will he? So he grabs the stolen Army coat, refastens his wrist strap and goes to sign out of the hotel.

When asked for his name, he adds the 'Captain' for good measure.

:::

The Doctor. And Rose Tyler.

Hell, they can make a man change.

Their calming, slightly manic influence on Jack tightens but never smothers. He still flirts, still shoots, and _definitely _still drinks. He just doesn't con the good guys any more.

The bad guys are still fair game, though.

:::

Dammit. _Dammit._

Dying is fine. Coming back every time is not.

Jack can't even begin to describe what it feels like. Broken glass is the closest he can get to that unwillingness, like the Universe is being made to haul him back from emptiness against its will. But it's more than that - like there's some sort of magnetic pull between that which is Jack and that which is Life. The two are attracted, and any attempt to force them apart only increases the power of one over the other.

And pain, oh yes. Death does not dampen, only amplifies.

It's strange, thinks Jack, that without any technical body to inhabit he can feel the phantom limbs a thousand times over. But then the magnets align, and he is mentally screaming too much to care.

:::

Torchwood is a mistake. Him getting involved with Holroyd and Guppy, with their insatiable desire to satisfy the statutes of Queen Victoria to the letter - namely, removing any alien threats to the British Empire. They take to the task with glee.

Jack's stomach turns every time they mention a new race or object; every time a rift alert comes through or the summons arrives from Torchwood London. Because he is tied to them and what they do, and while he can try to help those unfortunate souls who are left alive long enough to escape, there's nowhere they can hide afterwards.

Trapped on a world they never had any intention of belonging to, waiting for the mythical rescue which may or may not come.

Jack knows how they feel.

:::

Rebuilding is _hard_. Especially alone, and with workers who really shouldn't know anything about the semi-secret basement from which half the country is saved.

So Jack develops his own little formula - 'Retcon'. Seems appropriate for a drug which rewrites the selected time, removing all trace of the out-of-the-ordinary. And so life goes on. Solo.

:::

Jack's been looking through files. He needs help - he found that out a couple of days ago when a mugging left him incapacitated for the almost-apocalypse. So he gathered records of the strong, those who can survive and leave unmissed.

The name Suzie Costello catches his eye, so he does a little more research. Four days later, he begins to claw his way into her life. Four weeks later, she joins him in Cardiff. And sometime inbetween, he falls head over heels.

:::

Bang.

Panic.

_Gotta save her, gotta save her, gotta save her._

She can't die like this. Not from one gun shot.

Sitting at her beside, he remembers his desperation to find someone to help him. Now it seems they both need help.

The heart monitor reminds him that every beep further into her life takes her further away from him.

Back to the files, then.

:::

Ianto doesn't… fit into the team, so much as leave it completely unchanged. The arrivals of Toshiko and Owen had shifted the dynamics, like a matchstick triangle with an extra match, but Ianto just sort of… hovers on the outside.

Jack tries to pay very little attention to him. He knew Torchwood One right up to the Hartman days, and if the Jones boy is anything like them, he'll take a mile for every inch. And Suzie has a bad feeling about him. Suzie's usually right.

:::

She died.

Life goes on.

Somehow.

:::

The relationship with Ianto starts as a coping mechanism. Gradual flirting, building up to more. Jack needs to put himself back out there, the anything-goes flirt who never gets too attached.

Then he gets a little attached to Ianto. Not enough to make the Lisa thing excusable, but enough to forego Retcon. And definitely not enough to stay faithful.

_You would have stayed for-_

Oh, shut up, the rest of his mind snaps. He doesn't allow himself to think of her name any more.

:::

Gwen Elisabeth Cooper.

There are Suzie-like aspects of her, but mainly she is the Anti-Suzie. The Not-Suzie.

Jack loves her too, because even an absence of Suzie is something to hold onto.

In time, he comes to love her for herself. For her warmth, her life.

But he never takes it further because he's got more than enough life already

:::

Suzie comes back, and tries to take away the woman that replaced her.

_She can't replace you_, he wants to say. _She's half of what you were. Are._

But then she dies, and leaves him again, and it doesn't matter any more.

:::

The team are starting to pull together. And Jack has to admit, there was a tiny part of him, throughout all that time with the Doctor and the Master, that hoped it would make them stronger.

Gwen is a leader now. More like-

_don't go there_

-every day, and he loves her all the more for it. But she's lost to him, so he turns to Ianto. Learns to care for the one you're with. Ianto's been pulled into the team as well, more than Jack ever managed, and his friendship with Gwen makes Jack's heart ache. They speak in a language he doesn't understand.

Sometimes he yearns for the simplicity of what Tosh and Owen have. Unwilling to admit their affections, but with an outcome blindingly obvious in its inevitability.

But no matter. The aliens, the Rift. They won't wait for him to finish his inner monologue.

:::

Jack walks out of his office.

He sees Tosh bringing Owen a sandwich, and the look that passes between them.

He sees Gwen chatting to Ianto about last night's rugby game and they notice him watching. They smile.

He sees Myfanwy swooping overhead, ever spiralling upwards to touch the stars.

And then he realises - he's not seeing a group of individuals forced into saving the world. He's seeing his team.

:::

Captain Jack Harkness is wrong.

Wrong on so many levels.

But for a while at least, he has no desire to be right.


End file.
